


Glimpses of a Lost Life

by yulon



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Amnesia, Kingdom Hearts III Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-07
Updated: 2019-03-07
Packaged: 2019-11-13 14:00:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18033074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yulon/pseuds/yulon
Summary: The four lost Keyblade wielders of Daybreak Town find themselves reminded of the lives they lost.Lives they don't remember.





	1. no. IX

Fountain Square was always busiest in the morning, when everyone was getting ready to depart for the day’s missions.

Dyme leaned back against the fountain as he plucked the strings on his sitar. The _twang_ of the notes danced above the mumble of the crowd, above the conversation and _cling-clangs_ of Keyblades and the shuffle of packing supplies. He smiled to himself and closed his eyes; he let his hands move on their own, let the mood of the morning set the mood of his music.

It was a calm dawn today, despite all the activity; a less experienced ear might think it a little frenzied, with so many wielders, some alone and some in parties, all going to and fro.

But Dyme was here almost every morning, and he knew all the moods.

No tension on this fine fall day. No nervous mumbling or glances. Today, there was only the practiced ease of a routine.

A handful of wielders called out to him as they passed by. Each time he responded with the ol’ nod-grin-wink, his fingers never moving from the strings.

Hey, they all had jobs to do, didn’t they? And Dyme had brought it upon himself to give them all some pep and inspiration when they were all groggy so early in the day. Their own bard.

Not to mention: where else would he find such an audience?

“Are you skipping missions again?”

The high, childish voice nearby made him roll his eyes a bit _too_ dramatically.

“Aw, come off it, Chirithy,” Dyme said. “I’m providing a service!”

To illustrate, he pushed the tune to a high and energetic flourish. Some walking by glanced at him.

“You’re supposed to be gathering -”

“Listen! Don’t you think Foreteller Gula has enough people out there getting all that Lux? Now, me, I’m doing something a little different.”

“You’re just making a lot of noise.”

Dyme grinned at them sidelong. The Chirithy was sitting next to him on the edge of the fountain, the water dancing behind their backs.

“I’ll go _later_. How about that? That cheer you up?”

Chirithy gave him a look. He still wasn’t sure how they could do that when their eyes looked like a stuffed animal’s stitched ones - but it was still a _look_.

“You said that yesterday.”

Dyme shrugged and focused on the strings again - focused on the reverberations humming from his fingertips to his core, focused on how the sound buoyed over and into the crowd.

“You and I both know I’m not so great at the fighting bit with the Keyblade,” Dyme said cheerily. He picked up the beat a touch more, grinning when he saw a nearby Anguis wielder start to tap her foot to the beat as she finished packing supplies. “I’m better as an _inspirational_ source!”

“ _Andddd_ you and I both know you’re not bad at fighting. You’re just lazy.”

“Eh! Semantics!”

“That’s not what semantics means, and you know it.”

“Agree to disagree.” He hummed and readjusted his grip on the sitar. Or… well. Keyblade, really. When he’d first gotten it, it had appeared in the _shape_ of a sitar, with the teeth as the tuning dials and the blade edge buoying out at the bottom and growing hollow with the cavity. Even came with strings! Gula had actually _gawked_ at it when it had first formed in Dyme’s hand. Apparently, not even the Foreteller had seen anything like it.

So, hey, why not use it like it wanted to be used?

“Besides, you didn’t argue my last point.”

“The Keyblade is supposed to fight the Darkness -”

“Uh huh. I _am_ fighting the Darkness... lifting people’s spirits! Keeping them happy! Ready to _go_ ! When a Heart’s lifted up by music, no _way_ Darkness can start simmering there.”

“Sure, but -”

“Nope! You just agreed.”

Chirithy sighed.

“You have an excuse for everything, don’t you? “

Dyme laughed, and the water behind him jumped up to dance for a splash.

“Gotta be smart, Chirithy. That way, you can do whatever you want.” He reached over and ruffled the Dream Eater’s head, mussing up the short hair there. Chirithy gave an indignant squeak. “And anyway! Who’s gonna notice one Keyblade wielder missing?” His grin turned sly. “On the other hand… I bet you all my munny they’ll _definitely_ notice if their favorite musician is gone.”

And today, he wasn’t going anywhere.

 

\---

 

Demyx felt himself drawn to the fountain of Radiant Garden.

They were pretty, sure. Newly rebuilt and shiny, alright. The waters danced well and gracefully enough, though he knew he could make it dance far better than the _too_ rhythmic up-and-down they now displayed.

Anyone would have guessed he liked the fountains for such obvious and shallow reasons, but the real reason confused him.

He hummed to himself and poked and prodded some of the stonework keeping the fountain together. Dark as it was, he’d figured no one would be able to spot him in his even darker cloak as he slipped out of the castle to go grab (steal) some food. Oh, sure, Zexion - Ienzo, now, right, right - had offered him food earlier, but he’d declined. They didn’t have the stuff he was in the mood for, and anyway, the food truck in town had the _best_ burrito bowls.

Demyx cocked his head and eyed the fountain. What a weird feeling it gave him. It was like the end of a song he couldn’t remember, with the notes buzzing at the end of his fingers but unplayable in their forgetfulness. The _worst_ feeling!

With another hum, the Nobody backed up and studied the fountain at a distance. It was circular like a well and tiered with two platforms where water cascaded down from.

Something about it!

Something about it felt like homesickness.

“Huh!”

He jumped, catching his outburst by putting his hand over his mouth and looking around. Nobody was around, still, and the only sound was the trickle of the water.

“Weird,” he whispered to himself, and reached out with his foot and nudged the edge of the fountain like it was some sleeping animal.

_Y’know, come to think of it, this little plaza would be a nice place to play some music._

He hopped in place a little, a smile lighting up his face. Oh, hell yeah! Though abandoned now, he knew this was a traffic-laden area during the day, as it was almost smack-dab in the middle of the city. The homesickness was soon forgotten. Think of all the people he could catch with his tunes!

Now, that was an alright plan.

As long as Xehanort didn’t win and destroy the world or whatever it was he planned to do. Right. As long as that didn’t happen. He scratched the back of his hair and glanced up at the Castle, where he’d dropped off the vessel yesterday.

Should he help out with stopping that a little more…?

  
“Nahhh.” He waved a dismissive hand and moved away from the fountain. They could handle it. And when they handled it, he’d give them a little show, right here, by the one and only musical talents of Demyx.


	2. no. X

“We could have had that!”

The four Keyblade wielders sat around the table, a scattering of drinks shared between them. The rest of the tavern was relatively quiet in the contrast to their party’s grumbling; most everyone else had already gone home, and the bartender continued glancing at them, wondering when she could go home, herself.

“There wasn’t much we could have done,” another wielder replied.

“Yeah. That Behemoth would have taken a party twice our size, nevermind the Darkside showing up.”

“But we still had it.”

“Hey, okay, it was close, I’ll give you that. But we gave it what we had. I’m just glad we’re all still alive.”

The wielder at the far end of the table leaned forward with an easy smile. With a wave of his hand, the young man pulled a flash of cards from the air and shuffled them between his hands.

“Sometimes the hand of fate -”

A collective groan lifted from the group.

“ - deals a bad hand,” finished one of them as they reached for a drink. “Yeah, Ludor, we get it.”

Ludor only smiled, nonplussed. He flipped the cards to his other hand.

“What? I’m right, aren’t I?”

“Doesn’t help any.”

“Of course it does. What happened happened. We accept what we’re dealt and move on. There’s no reason to bemoan things you had no control over.”

Ludor began dealing out the cards. Two of his friends moved the empty tankards aside to make room. The third and most sullen watched in silence.

It was the same routine every night: go home to rest after a day of missions for Vulpis, then reconvene here to drink and play cards. To Ludor, it was a ritual as sacred as any religion’s: a time to allow themselves to realign, to find comfort in companionship and in the fun of a well-known game.

He smiled an easy, confident smile as he finished dealing the instruments of the rite.

“The usual?” he asked, knowing the answer but asking anyway. The illusion of choice was an important part of the ritual they shared: it broke it of something dull and robotic and expected. Sometimes they surprised one another by suggesting another game, but today, after such a loss, he knew it would be The Usual played in their hands.

Nods all around.

Again, Ludor smiled. “Set your wager, then,” he said.

A pause passed between them as they looked over their cards, then reached into their pockets to set out their munny.

“Ludor, I really don’t get how you act so calm all the time,” one said as the first turn came and went. “You really believe in fate that much?”

He shrugged and set down one of his cards, face-down, then pushed in another handful of munny.

“Yes. I think it’s foolish not to.”

“So you believe everything is just how it’s meant to be?” asked his more sullen member. She was leaning forward, head propped up on her hand as she eyed her cards. She put one down. “No changing it?”

Ludor tilted his head and hummed thoughtfully. “Yes and no. I suppose you can think of it like our game, here.” He tapped the back of the cards in his hands. “Like I said, fate deals you the cards, and you have to accept what they are. You can’t grumble and simply rummage through the deck until you find a flush, can you? Where’s the fun in that?”

“But life’s not a game.”

“No, no. It’s not. But…” He reached out and flipped over his card, revealing a 10 of spades. “You look at what fate dealt you and work around it. It’s all about working with what you have, my friends. Using what life has given you to your advantage.”

“Even when bad shit happens?”

“Of course. Most of all when bad things happen.”

“You can curse, Ludor, it’s okay.”

He smirked and watched as another of his friends placed down a card. Two other rounds passed by before he spoke again, when he felt them grow confident and cocky with their cards. So easy to pick up that shift in the air!

“Hm. Nonetheless, yes. When bad things happen, you can change what threads come together for the next game.” He revealed another card: a two. A chorus of annoyed mumbling rose from the group. “You are given a bad hand, fine. It’s what you plan to do with it that gives you a choice in the matter. Your decision directly corresponds to what the game does next.”

“You had a two the whole time?”

“Of course I had a two.” He winked. “Bad hand. But I played it right, didn’t I? Now, let’s see how you all overstretched your cards.”

Yes. All too high in number. Ludor smiled and raked in the munny.

“Fate dealt us a bad hand with the Darkside surprising us against the Behemoth. We couldn’t change that, just like we couldn’t change our hands, here. But…” He picked up their cards. “We made the right play: we escaped with our lives.”

“That’s still a loss.”

“Ah! Is it?” His smile grew sly. “One, we have our lives. Two… we know where both those Lux-laden monsters are. I am sure it won’t take much convincing other Vulpes to join us on a raid, with us reaping the rewards.”

They began to perk up.

“Oh, shit! Right!”

“Heartless like that don’t move from place to place. Too big.”

“Hey, good idea, Ludor.”

Ludor reshuffled the cards and shrugged an easy, laid-back shrug.

“Oh, just changing fate for the next round. Now. Shall we play again?”

 

\---

Luxord stared glumly at his soaked clothing.

The robe was waterproof, but all the waterproof technology in the world couldn’t stop one from getting the clothing _underneath_ wet when one was tripped back into a maelstrom.

Heaving a sigh, he pulled off his gloves and set them aside on a rock to dry, doing the same with his boots and socks. Awful.

At least the island he’d panickedly portalled to after falling off the Dutchman had more than enough places to sun and dry his clothing.

And himself. He was only thankful he had short hair: it was already half-dry in the heat of the Caribbean sun.

Almost certainly, he could return to base and get drier faster. Certainly. Of course he could.

But what gentleman showed up to his place of employment, sopping wet and exhausted to the bone?

He was only thankful no one had seen him fall.

“Bah. Bloody pirates,” he mumbled, strippling off his cloak and throwing the useless thing off to the side so his soaked clothes could dry.

 _Sometimes you’re simply dealt a bad hand_. He sighed quietly, tilting his face to catch the sun. Who knew Jack was going to go and be so crude about the whole affair?

Ah, well.

This world was certainly very alive, that was certain.

So full of chances. So - _fun_. A small smile found its way onto his face.

What a shame he had spent such time in the static of the Castle That Never Was - though at least the Keyblade Graveyard had some more life to it, despite such an irony in regards to its name. A shame indeed, for it had nothing on the wildness of this world.

He missed this.

Luxord leaned back against the palm tree he’d found shelter underneath and stared out at the sea. He closed his eyes against the sun.

Eyes closed, he felt, for a moment, for one brief flash , as if it was a the worn back of a wooden chair he leaned against and not the palm tree, the smell of ale and not the sea, the murmur of familiar voices and not the crashing of the waves along the beach.

Luxord opened his eyes. He blinked once as the memory, foggy as it was, fell away. Then his smile turned somewhat serene, somewhat calm, despite the alien and sudden pang of homesickness piercing the hollow of his chest.

The Tower. A curious draw, this morning. A card of revelations.

_How fascinating._


	3. no. XI

“Strelitzia, stop squirming,” Lauriam chastised. “You’re going to make it go crooked.”

“Sorry.”

He _tsk’_ d quietly and readjusted his fingers on his sister’s hair. No matter how many times he braided it, she always tended to move in the chair.

“You know, you’d really out to learn how to do this yourself," he said. “I’m not always going to be around.”

“Will you getting a Keyblade take up all your time away from me?”

Lauriam smiled and tightened a part of the braid before moving on to the next knot.

“Oh! Is that a hint of jealousy in my dear sister’s tone?”

“No!” The eleven-year-old sat up straighter in the chair. “It’s just… you know... “

He shrugged and continued braiding. A breeze drifted lazily through the open window, fluttering the leaves of the dozens of potted plants scattered around the room: some small as teacups and others massive, their foliage so burdened by the space of the living room they coiled up and around the walls and ceiling. They enjoyed the sunlight and the warm day just as much as the two siblings did. Lauriam could tell.

“It’s not just the Keyblade, Strel. And if I’m worthy of one, you will be, too, you know.”

“You think so?”

“Of course.” His heart beat a little harder. It always tended to get all pitter-pattered when they spoke of the Keyblade. The legendary weapon would be bequeathed to him next month with a handful of other hopefuls, now that he’d completed the various trials to prove his worthiness. At fourteen, he was one of the youngest. Invi herself would bequeath it to him.

It still seemed half a dream. Only a month away!

  
He wondered what his would look like, and, almost unthinking, he glanced up at the wealth of plants he and his sister had worked so tirelessly to nurture. Keyblades were shaped from one’s Heart, and he had _some_ inkling his would be themed to his great love for flora.

Lauriam looked back at the braid. Oh. Crooked. He quickly undid the last loop and hoped Strelitzia didn’t realize what he was doing.

“Daydreaming again?”

She really was too observant.

“No. Seeing if you’re paying attention.” The braid fixed, he sighed and continued his brotherly duties. “Really, though. Braiding isn’t hard. Why won’t you let me teach you?”

“My hair’s too long to do it by myself.”

“Hmm.” It _was_ long, nearly reaching her lower back when not done up. “I’m sure there’s a trick or two to do it.”

“Do you not want to braid my hair anymore?”

“No, it’s not that. It’s what I said before. I’m not always going to be around.”

Strelitzia shifted a little in her seat and started to glance back at him.

  
“Crooked!”

“Sorry!” She turned back with a snap and put her hands on the sides of the chair, as if to restrain herself. “It is about the Keyblade, isn’t it? Why you keep saying that? You didn’t answer before.”

Lauriam hesitated. In their silence, the distant sounds of a spring in Daybreak Town drifted through the window as easily as the breeze had: running footsteps on cobblestone, birdsong, the trickle of water from the fountains. The sounds of home should have calmed him, but they did nothing to quell the worries lurking in his chest: worries which had begun to stew since he had won the right to a Keyblade of his own.

“Yes. A little,” he admitted. “It’s a remarkable responsibility, the Keyblade. And it’s powerful. The moment I wield it, I will become a target.”

Strelitzia was sometimes as quiet as the plants around them, but like the plants, he knew how to read her. He paused in his braiding and tilted his head so he could look at her profile. She was frowning a little.

“I don’t want to scare you,” he said gently. “I only… I just want to make sure -”

“You’ll be okay.” She glanced at him sidelong, smiling her gentle smile. “I understand, but - you’ll be okay. You always are.”

He returned the smile, though he wished it was as confident as hers. Sometimes his little sister had such a knowingness about her… such hope and belief in what she accepted as the truth.

“It’s not me I’m worried about,” he said.

She watched him out of the corner of her eye before her small smile returned. “You don’t have to worry about me, Lauriam.”

“I believe it’s my job as eldest to worry over you.”

She giggled, and the tension broke. Lauriam pulled back, finished the braid, and tied it off with a ribbon, bright red and trailing at the edges like a banner.

“No crooked edges, I am happy to report,” he drawled, pushing it over her shoulder so she could see his handy work. Her auburn hair was as vivid as her namesake, today. “See what sitting still does?”

“Thank you!” She leapt to her feet and grabbed him in a quick hug. When she pulled back, she looked up at him. “Lauriam?”

“Yes?”

“I’m really happy for you. Please… don’t let this happiness turn to worry over me. Okay?”

He blinked, taken aback, and opened his mouth, but Strelitzia put up a finger.

“We’ve always been together. Even if something happens… our Hearts will always find our way back to one another! That’s what Hearts are for.” A smile lifted her face, and she placed a hand on her chest. “Okay?”

A smile of his own tugged at a corner of his mouth. He reached out and pulled at the end of her braid. “Okay.” His worries eased back underneath her sureness, and he regarded the moment with a bit of pride and annoyance. It was not often he had to be the one comforted, and he chided himself for being too open in front of her. He was her big brother; he shouldn’t worry her with such talk.

“ - though,” he said, tilting his head, “it would make me feel better if I taught you how to braid.”

She laughed. “If I let you, will you stop being so weird about this Keyblade stuff?”

“When have I ever been ‘weird?’”

“Lots of times.”

He snorted and moved so he was sitting in the chair. “I’m wounded. Really. Now come here. Let me show you how…”

\---

  
No one was ever allowed in Marluxia’s garden.

It was not a place of privacy, the Castle That Never Was. Its stark walls and starker personalities were prone to eyes which always watched. The Lesser Nobodies were there servants, certainly, but even his Reapers would lay all his secrets bare if Xemnas asked it of them.

They, too, weren’t allowed in this room.

Hounding every inch for space, the plants were as numerous as they were varied. Vines crawled up the walls and clung to the ceiling; flowers of every color and size, some as big as a man’s head, bloomed in every corner; flytraps with fangs dozed in some quieter parts of the garden, stirring only when he brushed by them.

  
His element gave them life. Provided. It was almost too easy, sometimes. There was always a challenge inherent in having a garden - plants were far more picky than people about things, and tended to go off and _die_ when not properly sated - but with a wave of his hand, even the most far-gone plant, stripped bare and blackened with dehydration, could curl back to life.

  
Marluxia did so now, his walk slow and purposeful, his eyes scanning the flora as he brushed his fingers over the leaves and flowers stretching out at him as fans would to a celebrity. A flytrap was healed of a burnt sore on one of its stalks; he pulled moisture out of an orchid which had been slightly overwatered; leaves grown old fell and were reabsorbed as fertilizer into the soil.

To others, the affair might seem a lonely business. Quiet and still, the only sound was the muffled click of his boots as he walked the perimeter of the room. But Marluxia found this take droll and uneducated. Then again, most here were. Each plant had a personality of its own, and the time he spent here was just as good for them as it was for him. He healed them; they healed him. It was a symbiotic relationship.

Marluxia slowed to a stop as he entered the warmer part of the garden, reserved for the more tropical plants he had. These were perhaps the most finicky of the lot. Like any beautiful diva, they had their qualms about everything. He wrinkled his nose as he took in some wilting and drooping and all the other dramatics, fixing them with a flick of his wrist and a cascade of black-magenta energy.

And then there was _this_ one. Marluxia eyed the plant with some amount of annoyance. Oh, certainly, the great blades of orange petals, splaying out like a bird’s wing, were healthy. The thin green stalk wasn’t marred by any marks or mold.  
But no matter what he did, the bird-wing petals of the strelitzia grew a little crooked.

He reached out and carefully pushed them high and straight, cutting up like a knife.

“Awfully stubborn,” he mumbled, eyes narrowed, as he pulled back and the petals reset to their crookedness. To anyone else, it would seem fine. But Marluxia knew better. They were just a bit off-center, and for some reason, it aggravated him beyond his ability to comprehend. How could something aggravate him when he had no Heart?

And yet…

He felt a fondness for such stubbornness. In all other avenues of his non-existent life, anything crooked (literally or figuratively) to his planning, careful and compact as it was, was an annoyance. But in a garden of plants, this was the only one who remained cheerfully oblivious to his whims. Yes. Out of all the plants, this one had the most personality.

Perhaps a little crooked was alright, this time, for as aggravating as it was, it sparked some strange, distant sense of amusement. Of warmth.

The barest twitch of a smile lifted his cold face.


	4. no. XII

 

“I don’t get why you don’t go hang out with them.”

Elrena ignored her Chirithy, keeping her eyes on the dummy in front of her. Her Keyblade, electric yellow and sharp as any sword, flashed as she swung forward and struck the target along its shoulders. It was supposed to look like a Neoshadow, but to her it looked like some overstuffed kids toy someone had stapled the antenna onto. 

“Elrena, I know you can hear me!”

She rolled her eyes and pulled back. Earlier, she’d dragged her heel through the dirt of the training arena to make a line to start at. She’d been working on her distance lunges for over a week now - a full-bodied leap and swing from five feet away - and she was already pleased with the results. She’d always been fast, nimble as a hare, but she wanted to be _better_. At a distance, she could lunge and strike and pull back before they had a chance to hit her. Small as she was, she couldn’t afford a single hit, and some of the Heartless (among other things) were absolute brutes.   
“Chirithy, I’m kind of busy.” Elrena stretched her hands over her head with a sigh, stretching out the tiring muscles in her shoulders and back. 

“You’ve been training for forever.”

“And that’s not a  _ good _ thing?” She spun her Keyblade to her side and popped her neck with a roll of her head. “I thought you were supposed to be coaching me to get better. Or at least you  _ want _ me to get better. You don’t do a lot of coaching.”

Chirithy huffed. The little Dream Eater was sitting on the fence separating off the training area from the outer plaza. Out here, the ocean was audible, a rumble of water and seabird calls.

“I am coaching you!” the Dream Eater insisted. “And, as coach, I say you should hang out with your party members!”

She rolled her eyes and turned to look at them, one hand on her hip and her Keyblade hanging loose at her side. “I told you  _ before _ . I don’t want to. I want to train. Now can you stop complaining and give me some actual tips?”

“I did. You’re just stubborn.”

Elrena sucked on the inside of her cheek for a moment and eyed them. Chirithy eyed her back. 

“You know I mean combat-wise, dummy.”

“You know I know what you mean, dummy.”

Elrena snorted and glanced over Chirithy’s head and out at the city. In the afternoon, the purple roofs of Daybreak Town looked almost magenta in the sunlight, and in the depths of summer, she could see the heat rising off of the shingles. 

“Chirithy -”

“Elrena.”

She glanced at them, and they looked at her coyly. This was a game they played often, little bites and picks and prods: a mutual push and pull. 

“How is ‘hanging out’ with my party good for training?  _ And _ -!” She put up a finger to halt their response. “Don’t say anything about how being with them will somehow make me stronger. Magically. ‘Kay?”

Chirithy heaved a sigh. 

“Friends are important!” they insisted, kicking their feet up from where they hung off the side of the fence. “They make your Heart stronger… which makes  _ you _ stronger. And you can’t make friends if you’re always alone, y’know!”

She wrinkled her nose and turned back to face the dummy. Idly, she passed her Keyblade to her other hand, then back again. “I like being alone.”

“I mean… there’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s always nice to have friends.”

“Why?”

“I just told you why!”

“What, having friends will magically make my Heart stronger? I told you not to be all vague about -”

“Of course they will! The more bonds you have, the more Hearts you’re connected to. And that makes your Heart a lot stronger, ‘cause then it can use all that strength you have from those bonds.” Seeing Elrena stare at them unimpressed, they sighed. “It’s like… like your Heart’s an ocean, and each bond is a river flowing into it. The more rivers connected to the ocean, the more water in that ocean… and the bigger it is!” 

Elrena ran a hand through her hair, mussing up her bangs. “Yeah, yeah. I’m not dumb. I get it.” Still. It seemed all magic mumbo-jumbo to her.  
Though… most stuff about Hearts did. She lifted her Keyblade and studied it in the hot light. She had a weapon made out of her Heart, too. That was pretty fucking mumbo-jumbo.

“Okay. I’ll give it a couple tries. But I’m not gonna be happy about it.”

“Oh, it’ll be nice! Stop being such a grouse.”

She grinned at them and grabbed her denim jacket from the other fence. Slipping it on, she turned back to Chirithy and beckoned them toward her. They jumped off with an  _ oof _ and followed her, and together they made their way back to the main city.

“You know,” she said, arms crossed over her chest, “I thought you were my friend.”

Chirithy jumped mid-step. “I am your friend!”

Elrena glanced down at them sidelong. A smirk lifted her face, a little sly in its tilt. “So I am hanging out with friends. Just one little pushy one.”

“I don’t count!”

“Sure you do,” Elrena said, waving her hand dismissively. They passed a party of Vulpes Keybladers heading in the direction they’d just came. “You’re tiny, but you’re still my friend.”

Chirithy considered this in silence for a moment, then hummed. “Okay. Maybe I count. But you still need more friends! Hanging out with me is cheating.”

She laughed and readjusted the lapels of her jacket. “Killjoy.”

“And, hey. You’re tiny too.”

“Didn’t know Chirithies could make such bad comebacks.”

“Hey!” Chirithy said, jumping again. “I just learned watching you!”

  
  


\----

Larxene fucking hated the ocean.

Saix had sent her to the Caribbean on purpose. She was sure of it. The jackass couldn’t take a joke well, could he? One little quip about his scar, and suddenly she was given a mission for recon in this absolutely awful watery world.   
It could be worse, though. Could have been Atlantica. Larxene eyed the fan of kunai held between her fingers with distant annoyance. Even still. This place had too much water, too many annoying people, and not enough stuff to push around - especially when her mission was recon, with emphasis on staying low and keeping away from the locals.

Yeah. Saix had  _ definitely _ done this on purpose. 

Whatever. Larxene lowered herself to the side of the rooftop and let her legs dangle as she sat and considered the wealth of landscape stretched before her. Port Royal was one of the busier towns around here and had plenty to watch, and at night, with her cloak on and her hood up, she blended into the darkness like a Neoshadow might.

She would have killed for a Neoshadow to pop up right now.  _ Something _ for her to fight. Larxene swung her legs back and forth, glowering at the ocean. Not much to report back, come to think of it. No Heartless in Port Royal. Maybe she should have gone to one of the pirate cities and seen if that wilder, darker culture would attract more Heartless.

Probably.

With a snap of her wrist, she summoned her kunai away and leaned back on her hands.  _ Whatever _ . That could wait. If Saix got his panties in a twist about it, then he got his panties in a twist. Served him right for trying to one-up her. 

It wouldn’t matter soon, anyway. They were being sent to Castle Oblivion soon, and after that, Saix would be another throat underneath her heel.

Thinking about that always calmed her down.

Larxene stifled a yawn and closed her eyes against the darkness as she took the moment to relax. The town had gone quiet about an hour ago; with no electricity, not many people seemed to stay up too late in this blackness, and from what she could tell, they got up too early for her to wrap her head around for work. With her eyes closed, she could almost imagine herself somewhere else. Somewhere much better than this ugly world. The salty air was strangely… nostalgic. The rumble of the ocean -

Something  _ clinked  _ nearby on the rooftop.

Larxene was up on her feet in a blink, kunai drawn. 

“Beat it -!” 

She stopped. The intruder was nothing more than a cat, frozen to the spot, hunched against the chimney of the house. The grey tabby eyed her warily, its tail puffed up.

“Ugh.” She lowered her fistful of knives and glared at the mangy thing. “What are you looking at? I said beat it!” 

The cat took a cautious step forward, slow as ice. Larxene banged her heel on the roof. 

The noise startled it. It gave her an annoyed yowl before skittering off to the side of the roof and jumping down to the alley below.

Larxene growled flexed her fingers; the kunai rose up and down like retractable claws. She hated animals. If it wasn’t a cat, it wouldn’t have been so lucky.

Yes. She hated animals, but cats… 

Cats were okay.


End file.
